Henne Fire

Yes, There are people who are demons. God preserve us! Mothers see things when they give birth, but they never tell what they see!

Henne Fire, as she was called, was not a human being but a fire from Gehenna. I know one should not speak evil of the dead and she suffered enough for her sins. Was it her fault that there was always a blaze within her? One could see it in her eyes: two coals. It was frightening to look at them. She was black as a gypsy, with a narrow face, sunken cheeks, emaciated--skin and bone. Once I saw her bathing in the river. Her ribs protruded like hoops. How could someone like Henne put on fat? Whatever one said to her, no matter how innocently, she immediately took offense. She would begin to scream, shake her fists and spin around like a crazy person. Her face would turn white with anger. If you tried to defend yourself, she was ready to swallow you alive. She'd start smashing dishes. Every few weeks her husband, Tevia Chazkeles, had to buy a new set.

She suspected everybody. The whole town was out to get her. When she flew into a rage, she said things that would not even occur to an insane person. Swearwords poured from her mouth like worm-eaten peas. She knew every curse in the holy book by heart. She was not beyond throwing a stone. Once in the middle of winter, she broke a neighbor's windowpane. The neighbor never learned why.

Henne had children, four girls; but as soon as they grew up, they ran away from home. One became a servant in Lublin; one left for America; the most beautiful, Malkeleh, died of scarlet fever; and the fourth married an old man. Anything was better than living with Henne.

Her husband, Tevia, must have been a saint. Only a saint could have stood such a shrew for 20 years. He was a sieve maker. In those days, in the wintertime, work started when it was still dark. The sieve maker had to supply his own candle. He earned only a pittance. Of course, they were poor, but they were not the only ones. A wagonload of chalk would not suffice to write down the complaints she hurled at him. I lived next door to her and once when he left for work at dawn, I heard her call after him: "Come back feet first!" I can't imagine what he could have done. He gave her his last groschen and he loved her, too. How could one love such a fiend? Only God knows. In any case, who can understand what goes on in the heart of a man?

My dear people, even he finally ran away from her. One summer morning, a Friday, he left to go to the ritual bath and disappeared like a stone in the water. When Henne heard he was seen leaving the village, she fell down in an epileptic fit right in the gutter. She knocked her head on a stone, hissed like a snake and foamed at the mouth. Someone pushed a key into her left hand, but it didn't help. Her kerchief fell off and revealed the fact that she did not shave her head. She was carried home. I've never seen such a face, as green as grass, her eyes rolled up. The moment she came to, she began to curse and I think from then on never stopped. It was said that she even swore in her sleep. Yom Kippur she stood in the women's section of the synagogue and as the rabbi's wife recited the prayers for those who could not read, Henne berated the rabbi, the cantor, the elders. On her husband she called forth a black judgment, wished him smallpox and gangrene. She also blasphemed against God.

After Tevia forsook her, she went completely wild. As a rule, an abandoned woman made a living by kneading dough in other people's houses or by becoming a servant. But who would let a malicious creature like Henne into the house? She tried to sell fish on Thursdays; but when a woman asked the price, Henne would reply, "You are not going to buy anyhow, so why do you come here just to tease me? You'll poke around and buy elsewhere."

One housewife picked up a fish and lifted its gills to see if it was fresh. Henne tore it from her hands and screamed, "Why do you smell it? Is it beneath your dignity to eat rotten fish?" And she sang out a list of sins allegedly committed by the woman's parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, back to the tenth generation. The other fishmongers sold their wares and Henne remained with a tubful. Every few weeks, Henne washed her clothes. Don't ask me how she carried on. She quarreled about everything: the washtubs, the clotheslines, the water pump. If she found a speck of dust on a shirt hanging up to dry, she blamed it on her neighbors. She herself tore down the lines of others. One heard her yelling over half the town. People were afraid of her and gave in, but that was no good, either. If you answered her, she raised a rumpus and if you kept silent, she would scream, "Is it a disgrace to talk to me?" There was no dealing with her without being insulted.

At first, her daughters would come home from the big towns for the holidays. They were good girls; they all took after Tevia. One moment mother and daughter would kiss and embrace and before you knew it, there would be a cat fight in Butcher Alley, where we lived. Plates crashed, windows were broken. The girl would run out of the house as though she had been poisoned and Henne after her with a stick, screaming, "Bastard, dreg, whore, you should have dissolved in your mother's belly!" After Tevia deserted her, Henne suspected that her daughters knew his whereabouts. Although they swore holy oaths that they didn't, Henne would rave, "Your mouths will grow out the back of your heads for swearing falsely."

What could the poor girls do? They avoided her like the plague. And Henne went to the village teacher and made him write letters for her saying that she disowned them. She was no longer their mother and they were no longer her daughters.

Still, in a small town, one is not allowed to starve. Good people took pity on Henne. They took her soup, garlic borscht, a loaf of bread, potatoes, or whatever they had to offer, and left it on the threshold. To enter her house was like walking into a lion's den. Henne seldom tasted these gifts. She threw them into the garbage ditch. Such people thrive on fighting.

Since the grownups ignored her, Henne began to quarrel with the children. A boy passed by and Henne snatched his cap because she imagined he had stolen pears from her tree. The pears were as hard as wood and tasted the same; a pig wouldn't eat them. She just needed an excuse. She was always lying and she called everybody else a liar. She went to the chief of police and denounced half the town, accusing this one of being a forger and that one of smuggling contraband from Galicia. She reported that the Hasidim were disrespectful of the czar. In the fall, when the recruits were being drafted, Henne announced in the market place that the rich boys were being deferred and the poor ones taken. It was true, too. But if they had all been taken, would it have been better? Somebody had to serve. But Henne, good sort that she was, could not suffer injustice. The Russian officials were afraid that she would cause trouble and had her sent to the insane asylum.

I was there when a soldier and a policeman came to get her. She turned on them with a hatchet. She made such a commotion that the whole town came running. But how strong is a female? As she was bound and loaded into a cart, she cursed in Russian, Polish and Yiddish. She sounded like a pig being slaughtered. She was taken to Lublin and put in a strait jacket.

I don't know how it happened, but she must have been on her good behavior, because in less than half a year, she was back in town. A family had moved into her hut, but she drove the whole lot out in the middle of a cold night. The next day, Henne announced that she had been robbed. She went to all the neighbors to look for her belongings and humiliated everybody. She was no longer allowed into the synagogue and was even refused when she wanted to buy a seat for the Days of Awe. Things came to such a pass that when she went to the well to get water, everyone ran away. It was simply dangerous to go near her.

She did not even respect the dead. A hearse passed by and Henne spat at it, calling out that the dead man's soul should wander in the wastelands forever. The better type of people turned a deaf ear to her; but when the mourners were of the common kind, she got beaten up. She liked to be beaten; that is the truth. She would run around showing off a bump given her by this one, a black eye by that one. She ran to the leech and the druggist for salves. She kept summoning everybody to the rabbi, but the beadle would no longer listen to her and the rabbi had issued an order forbidding her to enter his study. She also tried her luck with the gentiles, but they only laughed at her. Nothing remained to her but God. And according to Henne, she and the Almighty were on the best of terms.

Now, listen to what happened. There was a coachman called Kopel Klotz who lived near Henne. Once in the middle of the night, he was awakened by screams for help. He looked out of the window and saw that the house of the shoemaker across the street was on fire. He grabbed a pail of water and went to help put it out. But the fire was not at the shoemaker's, it was at Henne's. It was only the reflection that he had seen in the shoemaker's window. Kopel ran to her house and found everything burning--the table, the bench, the cupboard. It wasn't a usual fire. Little flames flew around like birds. Henne's nightshirt was burning. Kopel tore it off her and she stood there as naked as the day she was born.

A fire in Butcher Alley is no small thing. The wood of the houses is dry even in winter. From one spark, the whole alley could turn into ashes. People came to the rescue, but the flames danced and turned somersaults. Every moment, something else became ignited. Henne covered her naked body with a shawl and the fringes began to burn like so many candles. The men fought the fire until dawn. Some of them were overcome by the smoke. These were not flames but imps from hell.

In the morning, there was another outburst. Henne's bed linen began to burn of itself. That day, I visited Henne's hut. Her sheet was full of holes, the quilt and feather bed, too. The dough in the trough had been baked into a flat loaf of bread. A fiery broom had swept the floor, igniting the garbage. Tongues of flame licked everything. God save us, these were tricks of the Evil Host. Henne sent everybody to the Devil; and now the Devil had turned on her.

Somehow the fire was put out. The people of Butcher Alley warned the rabbi that if Henne could not be induced to leave, they would take matters into their own hands. Everyone was afraid for his kin and possessions. No one wanted to pay for the sins of another. Henne went to the rabbi's house and wailed, "Where am I to go? Murderers, robbers, beasts!"

She became as hoarse as a crow. As she ranted, her kerchief took fire. Those who weren't there will never know what the demons can do.

As Henne stood in the rabbi's study, pleading with him to let her stay, her house went up in flames. A flame burst from the roof and it had the shape of a man with long hair. It danced and whistled. The church bells rang an alarm. The firemen tried their best, but in a few minutes, nothing was left but a chimney and a heap of burning embers.

Later, Henne spread the rumor that her neighbors had set her house on fire. But it was not so. Who would try a thing like that, especially with the wind blowing? There were scores of witnesses to the contrary. The fiery image had waved its arms and laughed madly. Then it had risen into the air and disappeared among the clouds.

It was then that Henne began to be called Henne Fire. Until then, she was known as Black Henne.

• • •

When Henne found herself without a roof over her head, she tried to move into the poorhouse, but the poor and sick would not let her in. Nobody wants to be burned alive. For the first time, she became silent. A gentile wood chopper took her into his house. The moment she crossed the threshold, the handle of his ax caught fire and out she went. She would have frozen to death in the cold if the rabbi hadn't taken her in.

The rabbi had a booth not far from his house that was used during the Sukkoth holidays. It had a roof that could be opened and closed by a series of pulleys. The rabbi's son installed a tin stove so that Henne would not freeze. The rabbi's wife supplied a bed with a straw mattress and linen. What else could they do? Jews don't let a person perish. They hoped the demons would respect a Sukkoth booth and that it would not catch fire. True, it had no mezuzah, but the rabbi hung a talisman on the wall instead. Some of the townspeople offered to take food to Henne, but the rabbi's wife said, "The little she eats I can provide."

The winter cold began immediately after the Sukkoth holidays and it lasted until Purim. Houses were snowed under. In the morning, one had to dig oneself out with a shovel. Henne lay in bed all day. She was not the same Henne: She was docile as a sheep. Yet evil looked out of her eyes. The rabbi's son fed her stove every morning. He reported in the study house that Henne lay all day tucked into her feather bed and never uttered a word. The rabbi's wife suggested that she come into the kitchen and perhaps help a little with the housework. Henne refused. "I don't want anything to happen to the rabbi's books," she said. It was whispered in the town that perhaps the Evil One had left her.

Around Purim, it suddenly became warm. The ice thawed and the river overflowed. Bridge Street was flooded. The poor are miserable anyway, but when there is a flood at night and the household goods begin to swim around, life becomes unbearable. A raft was used to cross Bridge Street. The bakery had begun preparing matzoh for Passover, but water seeped into the sacks and made the flour unusable.

Suddenly, a scream was heard from the rabbi's house. The Sukkoth booth had burst into flames like a paper lantern. It happened in the middle of the night. Later, Henne related how a fiery hand had reached down from the roof and in a second everything was consumed. She had grabbed a blanket to cover herself and had run into the muddy courtyard, without clothes on. Did the rabbi have a choice? He had to take her in. His wife stopped sleeping at night. Henne said to the rabbi, "I shouldn't be allowed to do this to you." Even before the booth had burned down, the rabbi's married daughter, Taube, had packed her trousseau into a sheet to be ready to save it at a moment's notice, in case of fire.

The next day, the community elders called a meeting. There was much talk and haggling, but they couldn't come to a decision. Someone proposed that Henne be sent to another town. Henne burst into the rabbi's study, her dress in tatters, a living scarecrow. "Rabbi, I've lived here all my life, and here I want to die. Let them dig me a grave and bury me. The cemetery will not catch fire." She had found her tongue again and everybody was surprised.

Present at the meeting was Reb Zelig, the plumber, a decent man, and he finally made a suggestion: "Rabbi, I will build her a little house out of brick. Bricks don't burn."

He asked no pay for his work, just his costs. Then a roofer promised to make the roof. Henne owned the lot in Butcher Alley and the chimney had remained standing.

To put up a house takes months, but this little building was erected between Purim and Passover, everyone lending a hand. Boys from the study house dumped the ashes. School children carried bricks. Yeshivah students mixed mortar. Feival, the glazier, contributed windowpanes. As the proverb goes: A community is never poor. A rich man, Reb Felik, donated tin for the roof. One day there was a ruin and the next day there was the house. Actually, it was a shack without a floor, but how much (continued on page 204)Henne Fire(continued from page 94) does a single person need? Henne was provided with an iron bed, a pillow, a straw mattress and a feather bed. She didn't even watch the builders. She sat in the rabbi's kitchen on the lookout for fires.

The house was finished just a day before Passover. From the poor fund, Henne was stocked with matzoh, potatoes, eggs, horseradish, all that was necessary. She was even presented with a new set of dishes. There was only one thing everybody refused to do, and that was to have her at the Seder. In the evening, they looked in at her window: no holiday, no Seder, no candles. She was sitting on a bench, munching a carrot.

One never knows how things will turn out. In the beginning, nothing was heard from Henne's daughter, Mindel, who had gone to America. How does the saying go? Across the sea is another world. They go to America and forget father, mother, Jewishness, God. Years passed and there was not a single word from her. But Mindel proved herself to be a devoted child after all. She got married and her husband became immensely rich.

Our local post office had a letter carrier who was just a simple peasant. One day, a strange letter carrier appeared. He had a long mustache, his jacket had gilded buttons and there was an insignia on his cap. He brought a letter for which the recipient had to sign. For whom do you think it was? For Henne. She could no more sign her name than I can dance a quadrille. She daubed three marks on the receipt and somebody was a witness. To make it short, it was a letter containing money. Zeinvel, the teacher, came to read it and half the town listened.

"My dear Mother, your worries are over. My husband has become rich. New York is a large city, where white bread is eaten in the middle of the week. Everybody speaks English, the Jews, too. At night, it is as bright as day. Trains travel on tracks high up near the roofs. Make peace with Father and I will send you both passage to America."

The townspeople didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Henne listened but didn't say a word. She neither cursed nor blessed.

A month later, another letter arrived, and two months after that, another. An American dollar was worth two rubles. There was an agent in town and when he heard that Henne was getting money from America, he proposed all kinds of deals to her. Would she like to buy a house or become a partner in a store? There was a man in our town called Leizer the messenger, although nobody ever sent him anywhere. He went to Henne and offered to go in search of her husband. If he were alive. Leizer was sure he would find him and either bring him home or make him send her a bill of divorcement. Henne's reply was: "If you bring him back, bring him back dead, and you should walk on crutches!"

Henne remained Henne, but the neighbors began to make a fuss over her. That is how people are. When they smell a groschen, they get excited. Now they were quick to greet her, called her Hennely and waited on her. Henne just glowered at them, muttering curses. She went straight to Zrule's tavern, bought a big bottle of vodka and took it home. To make a long story short, Henne began to drink. That a woman should drink is rare, even among the gentiles; but that a Jewish woman should drink was unheard of. Henne lay in bed and gulped down the liquor. She sang, cried and made crazy faces. She strolled over to the market place in her undergarments, followed by catcalling urchins. It is sacrilegious to behave as Henne did, but what could the townspeople do? Nobody went to prison for drinking. The officials themselves were often dead-drunk. The neighbors said that Henne got up in the morning and drank a cup of vodka. This was her breakfast. Then she went to sleep and when she awoke, she began to drink in earnest. Once in a while, when she got the whim, she would open the window and throw out some coins. The little ones almost killed themselves trying to grab them. As they groped on the ground for the money, she would empty the slops over them. The rabbi sent for her, but he might just as well have saved his breath. Everyone was sure that she would drink herself to death. Something entirely different happened.

As a rule, Henne would come out of her house in the morning. Sometimes she would go to the well for a pail of water. There were stray dogs in Butcher Alley and occasionally she would throw them a bone. There were no outhouses and the villagers attended to their needs in the open. A few days passed and nobody saw Henne. The neighbors tried to peer into her window, but the curtains were drawn. They knocked on her door and no one opened it. Finally, they broke it open and what they saw should never be seen again. Some time before, Henne had bought an upholstered chair from a widow. It was an old piece of furniture. She used to sit in it, drinking and babbling to herself. When they got the door open, sitting in the chair was a skeleton as black as coal.

My dear people, Henne had been burned to a crisp. But how? The chair itself was almost intact; only the material at the back was singed. For a person to be so totally consumed, you'd need a fire bigger than the one in the bathhouse on Fridays. Even to roast a goose, a lot of wood is needed. But neither the chair nor the linen on the bed had caught fire. She had bought a chest of drawers, a table and a wardrobe, and everything was undamaged. Yet Henne was one piece of coal. There was no body to lay out, to cleanse, to dress in a shroud. The officials hurried to Henne's house and they could not believe their own eyes. Nobody had seen a fire, nobody had smelled smoke. Where could such a hell-fire have come from? No ashes were to be found in the stove or under the tripod. Henne seldom cooked. The town's doctor, Chapinski, arrived. His eyes popped out of his head and there he stood, like a figure of clay.

"How is it possible?" the chief of police asked.

"It's impossible," the doctor replied. "If someone were to tell me such a thing, I would call him a filthy liar."

"But it has happened," the chief of police interrupted.

Chapinski shrugged his shoulders and murmured, "I just don't understand."

Someone suggested that it might have been lightning. But there had been no lightning and thunder for weeks.

The neighboring squires heard of the event and arrived on the scene. Butcher Alley filled with carriages, britskas and phaetons. The crowd stood and gaped. Everyone tried to find an explanation. It was beyond reason. The upholstery of the chair was filled with flax, dry as pepper.

A rumor spread that the vodka had ignited in Henne's stomach. But who ever heard of a fire in the guts? The doctor shook his head. "It's a riddle."

There was no point in preparing Henne for burial. They put her bones in a sack, carried it to the cemetery and buried her. The gravedigger recited the Kaddish. Later, her daughters came from Lublin, but what could they learn? Fires ran after Henne and a fire had finished her. In her curses she had often used the word fire: fire in the head, fire in the belly. She would say, "You should burn like a candle," "You should burn in fever," "You should burn like kindling wood." Words have power. The proverb says: "A blow passes, but a word remains."

My dear people, Henne continued to cause trouble even after her death. Kopel, the coachman, bought her house from her daughters and turned it into a stable. But the horses sweated in the night and caught cold. When a horse catches cold that way, it's the end. Several times, the straw caught fire. A neighbor who had quarreled with Henne about the washing swore that Henne's ghost tore the sheets from the line and threw them into the mud. The ghost also overturned a washtub. I wasn't there; but of such as Henne, everything can be believed. I see her to this day, black, lean, with a flat chest like a man's and the wild eyes of a hunted beast. Something smoldered within her. She must have suffered. I remember my grandmother saying, "A good life never made anyone knock his head against the wall." However, no matter what misfortunes strike--I say, "Burst, but keep a good face on things."

Thank God, not everyone can afford constantly to bewail his lot. A rabbi in our town once said: "If people would not have to work for their bread, they would spend their time mourning death and life would be one big funeral."